


Angels Are Watching Over You

by LPCollins



Category: Supernatural, The Evil Gene (2015)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mental Health Issues, RSJ Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:28:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27136616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LPCollins/pseuds/LPCollins
Summary: With the boundaries of reality blurring right in front of him, Griff knew strange things were going on at Godfrey. Still, he never could have anticipated this latest hallucination. If that's even what it is.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 5





	Angels Are Watching Over You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Masterpiece_of_turkey_cleverness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Masterpiece_of_turkey_cleverness/gifts).



> HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! 🥳 Hope you like it, and may this little story be an omen that everything will turn out all right.
> 
> Thanks to [WarlockWriter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WarlockWriter) for beta reading!

No matter how hard he tried to deny it, deep down Griff thought he knew he was going crazy, just like his brother. He couldn't tell what was and wasn't real anymore, and it frightened him to death. He had killed that warden... No, that had been an accident. It wasn't his fault. It was the demons, they had _made_ him do it.

He just had to get back to Father Warren. He would know what to do. And he would believe Griff, confirm that he wasn't crazy, that it was just the demons playing a trick on him. It wasn't his fault. He had never wanted any of this to happen.

"Wow, they got you good, huh?"

He jumped up on Mobley's couch, startled by the voice. And by the sight in front of him.

What he saw was... himself. Another Griff was standing at the desk, looking at him with a sympathetic frown. This Griff's hair was longer though, longer than he had ever had it, and he was wearing a leather jacket.

Griff squeezed his eyes shut, pressing his hands against them in an attempt to will the vision to disappear, but when he opened them again, his other self was still there. "Go away," he told the appearance. Even though its eyes weren't black and it sounded normal, it had to be a demon. There was no other explanation for it. And Griff couldn't allow another one of those monsters to make him do something horrible. "Leave me alone. You're not real."

The demon didn't move. "You're Griff, right?"

"Get away from me!" Why didn't it just leave? What did they want from him?

"I should have come sooner," the demon mumbled as it leaned against the desk. "Look, I know the resemblance is a little creepy, but I'm not going to hurt you, all right?"

What? They had never said that before. They were evil. They always wanted to hurt him, torture him, make him hurt others. It should have left by now too. It shouldn't be trying to talk to him. This didn't make any sense.

"My name is Gabriel," the demon said, and Griff knew he had lost it. They made him go so mad that he was hallucinating.

"You're not real," he repeated, once again closing his eyes in the idle hope that it would go away. "You're just a demon trying to get into my head."

A little laugh made him look up again. "Oh man, I know none of this is funny, but you have no idea how ironic that is." As soon as his other self met his eyes, any trace of humor disappeared from its features though. "I am real. And I'm not a demon, Griff. Quite opposite actually."

That only confused him more. What the hell was happening to him? "What do you mean?"

'Gabriel' pouted its lips in thought. Eventually, it said, "Well, it's already too late for sanity anyway. I'm an angel. Archangel, to be exact."

A week ago, Griff would have scoffed at such a ridiculous idea. Now, on the other hand, he just didn't know. Who was he to judge what was real anymore?

To be honest, Griff was scared. Of this Gabriel, angel or not, of what it could do to him. Of the possibility that none of this was real and he had just lost his mind and was done for. Of the idea that if he fought the demons, they might turn out to be someone else all along, just like the warden. Maybe even Dana. He didn't want to hurt anyone anymore.

"Griff?" Gabriel asked, worry on his face.

"I don't know what to do," Griff confessed. It was the horrible truth. He felt like he might as well have entered another dimension and didn't even notice where or when, let alone how to get back. What had this place done to him?

The other Griff squatted down in front of him, so that they were more or less on eye-level. "Griff, why did you think I was a demon?"

"Because they're after me!" he desperately called out. "They're trying to mess with me, making me see things. They..." He fell quiet, not knowing what to say.

"Tell me about them," Gabriel calmly urged him on.

Unprepared for that question, Griff hesitated. "I... They... They've got these black eyes. And look like my brother. Or sometimes someone else I know." He tried very hard not to think about the warden. "They try to scare me. They're evil. I didn't want to hurt anyone; they made me!"

Gabriel made a face. "Well, I kinda hate to break this to you, but those things you've been seeing? None of them were real, Griff. There aren't any demons here."

"But..." Griff tried to object. "But Father Warren, he said that's what they were. He said it was true, that it wasn't just me!"

"Okay, who's this Father Warren guy?" Gabriel asked.

"He's a priest here, in the chapel," Griff explained.

"Griff, this place doesn't have a chapel. Or a priest called Father Warren."

No... No, this could _not_ be true... "What?" he managed to get out.

"Yeah," Gabriel sighed. "I'm sorry, but you've been... well, imagining this whole thing."

Griff had to let that sink in for a minute. "So... demons aren't real?"

Eyebrows raised, Gabriel slowly nodded. "No, they're real enough. They're just not what you've been seeing."

"What? But then... how do you even know?" Griff said. He didn't understand any of this.

"I'd have sensed them," Gabriel told him in a casual voice. "Although you did have me second-guessing for a minute when you mentioned the black eyes. Luckily us angels are kinda experts on the matter."

None of this was making any sense to Griff. He just wanted this to be over, to go home and let that be it. He couldn't do this anymore. An angel was telling him that he had been imagining demons for God's sake. And who was to say that Gabriel wasn't a hallucination himself then?

"I'm going crazy," he muttered. "This is insane." Then something dawned on him. "I killed someone."

Gabriel sighed and looked at him sympathetically. "True. But that wasn't your fault."

"Of course it's my fault!" Griff called out, the truth hitting him in the face like a sledgehammer. "If it wasn't a demon that made me do it, I did that! I- I killed that guy without reason, he was innocent, and I-"

"Griff, calm down," Gabriel ordered, standing up to grab him by the shoulders. "You didn't know what you were doing, all right? None of this is on you. You landed yourself in a real shitty situation, but it was an accident."

Even if that were true, it wasn't going to do him any good anymore. "What's wrong with me?" he asked. Gabriel might very well be a fragment of his imagination, but at least he was giving him answers.

The angel let go of him and went to sit next to him on the couch instead. "Well, I'm no psychiatrist, so I can't really tell you," he answered. "But I could help you get to a good one."

"No, I..." Griff tried. It couldn't be that easy. "I was _fine_. I took my pills..."

"Yeaahh, about that," Gabriel sighed. "Come to think of it, those might have actually just made it worse for all I know. See, those weren't your pills." He snapped his fingers, and suddenly there was a pill bottle in his hand. "These are," he said as he handed it to Griff.

"But..." He stared at the familiar capsules in shock. They looked exactly the same as usual. "How?"

Gabriel's brow furrowed in disapproval. "That doctor lady changed them up."

"Dana?" No, that couldn't be true. Dana was trying to _help_ him. She had even let him stay at her place last night! There was no reason for her to want to do this to him.

"Yup," Gabriel confirmed to his disbelief. "Which is why I suggest we get out of this place before she comes back. It's bad enough as it is without her sticking her stethoscope where it doesn't belong."

Griff was already shaking his head before the other man had even finished. "No, I can't leave. I have to finish my report, figure out what happened to Mobley-"

"Dana killed him," Gabriel interrupted him, and Griff's head snapped to the side to look the angel in the eyes.

"That... Why would she do that?" he barely managed to get out.

With a shrug, Gabriel simply said, "Same reason she switched your meds. Her research thing is apparently more important to her than people's lives."

All this time she had been lying to him then. Just to be able to keep this crazy place going. And Griff fell for it.

"I need to call my boss," he concluded. "They need to know that they were wrong, that she's dangerous..."

"Don't worry about that. I'll take care of it," Gabriel assured him. "Let's just get you out of here first, okay?"

And then what? There was nowhere for him to go, and after what he had done... "I can't leave. I killed someone, and I'm seeing things. Who knows what I'm gonna do next, or to who?"

"Well, that's what I'm here for," Gabriel replied. "To keep an eye on you. And trust me, you can't hurt me if that's what you're thinking."

The thought had indeed just occurred to him, but he guessed it made sense that angels weren't the easiest to kill.

"Why bother?" he asked. "What are you even doing here?"

Gabriel pouted his lips in thought. "Consider me your newly acquired guardian angel."

"You're my guardian angel?" Griff repeated.

"Well, technically there's no such thing, but I figured I might as well play the part," Gabriel explained, still sounding like nothing on earth was wrong.

Maybe all of this really didn't seem like a big deal to an actual angel. "But why me? Why now?"

"Oh, I already spotted you a while ago," Gabriel started. "I decided I should probably keep an eye on you, considering how much you look like me."

Griff opened his mouth to ask about that, but Gabriel raised a hand. "Don't even go there. It's a long and messy story involving a Norse god, really not the type of thing we wanna be wasting time on right now."

Oh, so now Norse gods were real too.

"Anyway, when I noticed things were kinda going pear-shaped for you, I thought you could use a hand," the angel concluded.

"But you've seen what I did," Griff objected weakly. The energy to fight all of this was starting to seep out of him at a steady pace.

"And I told you that that wasn't you," Gabriel stressed. "Not the real you. I've been watching you, Griff. I know you're a good guy. You have a problem, sure, but it's not too late to turn things around, all right? You can't give up yet."

Without thinking, he said, "Why not?" He met the other man's eyes, which mirrored his own perfectly. "Gabriel, look at me. What's the point anymore? I'm never gonna be able to undo what's happened."

For a moment, Gabriel just looked at him. Then he took a deep breath, and blew it out again before he started talking. "I know what you mean, okay? You've been through a lot, Griff, and hey, I get it. I know what it's like to lose your family. To make unforgivable mistakes. To have someone you trusted betray you. To feel like the only person you've left is you. I know. And it sucks big time. But that's not all there is to life. There's things that will make you happy again, at some point, even if it doesn't look like it right now. And if you think you're out of reasons to fight, let me set one thing straight: you got me now, kiddo. You're not alone anymore. And I wanna help you find a reason again."

Griff didn't know why he would say that or how he could mean it. He still didn't even know for sure if Gabriel was real in the first place. But the words were the kindest he had heard in a long time, and a tiny part of him desperately wanted to believe them.

"And, if I'm being perfectly honest," Gabriel added, "I gotta admit that that's also kinda why I came to help you, to... well, feel like I have a purpose again."

"So I'm your charity project?" Griff questioned, without trace of judgement in his voice. Even if it was true, the offer was still better than nothing at all.

"I prefer to call it friendship actually." Gabriel stood and reached out a hand. "So, what do you say? Ready to jump the bandwagon and never look back?"

With nothing left to lose, Griff only had to look at the archangel's hand for a good second before he took it, and with a flutter of wings, they disappeared.


End file.
